


something supposedly precious to you

by CiaranthePage



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Post-Canon, also as of writing this only act 1 and 2 are out, and i've only played act 1 and half of act 2, i thought about the hiveswap kids for too long and made myself sad, rose is a baby but she's there, so if something ends up inaccurate bcus of 3 or 4 or hauntswitch, then whoops lol, title is from that line from act 1 in the basement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:35:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28912452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CiaranthePage/pseuds/CiaranthePage
Summary: Your name is Joey Claire and the adults in your life don't do a very good job of taking care of you. It's fine. You'll manage.(When your babysitter shows up at your door with a baby in her arms in December of 1995, things get better, you never see Pa again, and then they get much, much worse.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	something supposedly precious to you

**Author's Note:**

> do you ever sit down to play act 1 again and then realize that bcus of the homestuck timeline joey and jude's life is only going to get harder after they have their alien adventures? have you ever sat down and thought about how these kids will go on their adventures and then probably be cut off from their newfound friends for the rest of their lives? maybe even ponder what roxy must have been like as a young mom and how long she might've tried to hold on for joey and jude before having to dedicate her time to taking care of rose?  
> no? really? well i have and then i wrote nearly 3k words about it (and if yes: cry with me)

“Do you think she got hurt by the meteors?” Jude asks. It’s the first thing either of you have said since the take-out got here.

You don’t have to ask who he means even if you’re tempted to, just to keep up the normal act a little longer. “She’s fine, Jude,” you say, more to your noodles than your brother. “You know how she is. She’s probably just… y’know, drunk. It’s her job to study meteors, she knows how to avoid them.”

“It’s been _days_ , Joey!”

It has. Roxy usually spends most of December with you because “you guys deserve a happy holidays too!” and Pa never bothers to come around and do it himself, but it’s already the tenth and Roxy hasn’t come home (or is this even her home?) for a week and a half. You got a weird postcard from Pa, which is unlike him, but no calls from Roxy or indications of where she’s been or when she’ll be coming by. She didn’t even miss her long visit last year when you had just -- When you got back from --

You’re squeezing your chopsticks so hard your knuckles hurt.

“She’ll be here,” you say. You don’t sound very convincing.

Jude looks back down at his food. He might very well be thinking about the same thing. You two haven’t talked a lot about… everything, really, involving the portal. It’s hard to talk about. Like poking at a bruise or trying to dance on swollen feet. Possible, sure, but when your day-to-day life already stings just to go through, why push yourselves further? Why think about the friends you made and lost? Why talk about the sights you saw that you’ll never experience again? Why mention the sweater still hanging in your closet, clinging to the smells and the sights of somewhere else, horns still awkwardly attached to the hood? You haven’t even told Roxy about it. Not when she got back, not when she went to the attic for something and you and Jude had matching warnings for her that stayed tucked inside your thoughts, not even when she asked where the funny little doll that used to sit next to the marble statue had gone and you said you didn’t know despite the fact that he was, at the time, sitting at the foot of your bed, being scrutinized for any indication that Pa had known what he was, _who_ he was the whole time and just never told you because Pa never tells you _anything_.

You finish the meal in silence.

Jude doesn’t go out to his treehouse; it started snowing while you ate and you won’t let him sit in the cold by himself. You two sit together in the living room, the TV on but volume low while you watch the snow outside pile up with mugs of hot chocolate and the noise of Jude’s Gameboy. Tesseract is asleep somewhere, probably upstairs; you hear her snoring. You’re not even sure what’s playing on the TV because you keep turning from the window to the front door, hoping that one of the times you look someone will knock. You don’t even know who you’re hoping for, really. Roxy, Pa, your mom? One of your friends from Alternia? Someone new, come to sweep you off your feet and into a home that doesn’t feel so empty? The lady from Pa’s childhood pictures?

Jude is asleep on your shoulder and you’re nodding off when the knock finally comes.

You jolt when the sound echoes across poorly-covered floors and the empty staircase, waking a disoriented Jude. There’s a second where you’re not sure you heard it right, but then the knock comes again and you push yourself up, shooing away the blanket you were wearing, to run to the door. The sound of your footsteps on the wood brings back memories that claw at your brain, but you push them aside. You fiddle with the lock and manage to get the door open, where you are greeted by several things at once. The first is the winter chill, made colder by the stars in the sky and the waning moon. The second is Roxy. And the third is a baby. Roxy steps inside and you shut the door to the winter chill; you hear Jude moving to turn on the lights.

When the lights flicker on, Roxy looks… older than you remember. You can’t puzzle out why, at first, until she moves to pull her scarf off and you realize that the dark circles under her eyes are more prominent than you’ve ever seen them and she’s dressed more professionally. She drops a backpack she was holding and sinks to the floor as Jude finds where you’re standing with her, letting out a sigh of exhaustion. The baby she’s holding in her arms, bundled up in a blanket and hat, stays sleeping soundly.

“Roxy, I was -- we were -- why did --” Jude stammers through a few sentence starts but can’t seem to choose one as he sinks to the ground himself, rubbing his eyes.

Roxy ruffles his hair and kisses him on the forehead. “We can talk about it later,” she says, and her voice is so tired that it makes your joints hurt. “I’m sorry, kiddos, I didn’t mean to take this long.”

Jude puts his face in his hands, though you think he might just be trying to fall asleep again. You feel frozen in place, unable to sit with them or walk away. You keep looking at the baby she’s holding. Is that her baby? But she never _looked_ pregnant? Was it one of those secret ones you saw a video about on TV? She’s never talked about dating anyone. Though you guess she never talked about herself much, either, just that she and Pa worked together. But she spends so much time with you two?

“Her name’s Rose,” Roxy says. She reaches one hand up and pulls you to sit with her. She’s smiling with the care and reverence you almost remember your mom giving Jude when he was a baby. “Isn’t she pretty, Joey?”

Rose stirs but doesn’t cry. She just opens her eyes and looks at you, blinking slowly. Her eyes are brilliant pink, a lot like Roxy’s but… deeper. More purple. They’re inquisitive and they don’t seem right for a week-old baby, but she doesn’t look a week old either, does she? She already has enough hair that Roxy has it pulled back with a headband. And her hair is so much like Roxy’s… Rose reaches out and takes your finger.

“She is,” you manage. Her hands are so small.

“Jude, do you want to meet Rose?” Roxy asks. “Then I can put all three of you to bed.”

Jude perks up and Roxy motions for him to move over. Rose hasn’t let go of your finger. You don’t have the heart to take it away. Jude comes and sits next to you and Rose looks at him, too, and he gasps at a volume you didn’t know he was capable of. “I was learning how to take care of her, is all,” Roxy explains. “Your Pa -- well, I’m sure you could guess he’s not the best at parental advice, and Dir...”

She falls really, really quiet. Not just ending her sentence but shrinking in on herself a little. Rose objects to the movement with a noise which finally summons Tesseract from upstairs. She slinks over to where you’re all huddled and gives Rose a sniff. Rose makes another noise, this one more inquisitive than distressed, and Tesseract licks her head. Roxy laughs but it’s half-hearted at best.

Roxy moves to get up first, nudging off her heels before cradling Rose with one arm and standing up. “C’mon, you two, let’s get you to bed.”

You get ushered to bed and Roxy takes the guest room she always uses. Your dreams are… indistinct.

The next morning you wake up to the smell of breakfast and for a second you think you’re still dreaming.

When you get out into the hall, Jude is standing outside of his bedroom, looking as confused as you are. “So you smell it, too,” he says; it tries to be a question but falls flat.

“Yeah.”

Downstairs the smell is even stronger. The kitchen door is propped open and Tesseract is lying in the doorway, tail wagging. You look inside and Roxy is bustling around the kitchen, making a proper pancake breakfast with eggs and bacon and fruit and everything. Rose is sitting in what looks like one of the baby seats they have at restaurants but propped up with a book and strapped to a barstool. There are pieces of banana in front of her that she picks at until she spots the two of you and coos, making grabby hands. “Oh, good morning!” Roxy says, turning to smile at you and Jude. She seems… steady on her feet. You take a moment to realize that she’s sober. “Don’t worry about Rose, I’ll move her when it’s time to eat.”

Maybe you _are_ still dreaming?

But it doesn’t feel like a dream when you find out Roxy is making chocolate chip pancakes or when she puts extra strawberries on your plate or when Jude smiles bigger than you’ve seen him smile in months because one of the pancakes she makes for him is shaped like a UFO abducting someone. The barstool feels real when you sit on it to eat and when Roxy asks you to hold Rose for a second while she puts away the booster seat, Rose pulling on your hair hurts like a pinch to make sure you’re awake. By the time Roxy picks Rose up and moves to sit on her own barstool, pulled from the basement and dusted off, you feel more awake than you have since…

Well, since last year.

Jude tells Roxy about his pet and the project he’s working on for school and how he beat the game she got him last Christmas while she was gone. She asks about your dance practice and you tell her about the recital you have when school starts back up. She dodges questions about how she got Rose but tells you fondly that Rose gets along with her cats and that she’s the most well-behaved baby Roxy’s ever known. Rose seems content eating soft fruits and bits of pancake that Roxy gives her. It’s a nice morning and you’re enjoying it up until the moment you realize how nice of a morning it is because then a feeling settles in and you start wondering when it’ll end.

(You are fifteen. That thought tastes bitter in your mouth, even through the pancakes, and when Roxy asks what’s wrong in a soft voice you’d almost forgotten you tell her you were remembering something from school. You’re fifteen and everything about you has been trained to expect good things to end before they’ve even begun.)

It takes a few days, at least. You decorate for Christmas and Roxy stays stable on her feet and you get to play with Rose, whose curiosity seems to be beyond her… not years, months maybe? Roxy dodges the question of how old Rose is every time you or Jude tries to ask.

The nice starts to come crumbling down when you sit in the living room for dinner and Roxy takes a deep, deep breath, the kind you take before a school presentation. “I’ve got some news. Do you want the news now or after dinner?” she says, and she’s not looking at either of you but at Rose, who looks up at her mother with an innocence you wish you could remember.

“Now!” Jude says before you can even finish the thought that Roxy didn’t specify what kind of news she has.

She looks at you and you nod. There’s no use in denying the cards on the table.

“Your pa is moving me up north, to New York. Says he needs some help getting an old lab up and running again and he… he thinks I’m the best one for the job. I used to live there, I know the area.” She pauses, and then specifies, “In New York, I lived in New York.”

Jude opens and closes his mouth a few times but Roxy shushes him with a gentle pat on the head. “That doesn’t mean I’m leaving you two for good, though! Just that I’ll be a little further away with Rose. No matter what, if you two need me, you’ll just have to give me a call.”

You don’t… you don’t know how to feel. You don’t know where Roxy was living before, for all you know she’s been living in New York this whole time and you just never asked. It’s not like you and Jude haven’t been taking care of yourselves more and more recently. And Roxy has a new baby, babysitting a teenager and an almost-teenager at the same time you’re trying to raise a baby and work in an important lab is probably exhausting. None of you say anything for a second.

“... will you still visit for Christmas?” Jude asks in a small voice.

Roxy’s smile is tired and you think there are tears in the corners of her eyes. “Of course, Jude.”

The holidays aren’t… ruined. But the news feels like a sword hanging overhead (a ship flying overhead, highlighted pink and gold) and when Roxy puts a new phone number on the fridge when she leaves, you find yourself wondering if you’ll even need to call it.

You see… less and less of Roxy over time. You call her more than you see her, not because you need anything but because you just want to talk. Jude likes to call and tell her about school as he starts collecting science awards and dedicates part of his success to her (and part to you, which you appreciate). She comes to your high school graduation with a toddler Rose in tow and it’s the first time you’d seen her in person for months, her dark circles deeper than ever. When you start college applications, you call her for help, because by the time you find yourself staring down college applications you have not seen or gotten anything more than a postcard from Pa in almost four years.

When you get accepted to a college a ways away from Hauntswitch and need to arrange both protections for the house and a way to legally take Jude under your guardianship, you call Roxy.

That time she goes real, real quiet. She says, slowly, carefully, with what you guess is tears or alcohol in her voice, that she’ll get you the documents you need, and then she apologizes. You tell her you don’t know why. She tells you she loves you and hangs up.

It feels weird to hear someone older than you say it and you don’t hang up the phone for two and a half minutes. Maybe you’re just shocked. Maybe you’re waiting for a voice down the phone. Maybe you hang up because you realize that voice is probably nowhere near a phone, anymore. He told you it always sounded lonely, being up in space.

The documents come before you hear from Roxy again and in the worst way possible.

Saying that Jude doesn’t get upset would be dishonest -- especially after you got back from Alternia, he gets worried about you every time you have to go somewhere without him -- and it’s always been that he gets upset enough to have a reaction beyond a disgruntled face he hides. In his room or in his treehouse, wherever he can get to, and doesn’t come back out until he calms down. Which is how you know that this is the worst possible, stomach-turning scenario; Jude walks up to you with an important folder in his hands and tears already trailing down his face.

The death certificate is dated almost two years ago. You remember his last postcard, the one he sent right before Roxy showed up with Rose for the first time, the island you could never track down on maps, the scribbled date. He never… he couldn’t have been sick. He would’ve told you if he was sick, right? But maybe he hadn’t gotten sick, maybe it was his adventuring that had gotten to him, and -- and --

You drop the certificate on the floor so you don’t crush it. If you’re crying, you don’t notice, because you just try to comfort Jude. There are other papers in the folder and you recognize Roxy’s handwriting but you can’t even take comfort in that because now you two feel truly, heartbreakingly alone in this world.

Somewhere in the bitter part of your heart that will never forgive your Pa, you hope that whatever had taken his attention felt more than supposedly precious to him. If nothing else, you don’t want him to be the only winner here.

You leave Half-Harley Manor for college with Jude and don’t look back until you have to.

**Author's Note:**

> as always: if you enjoy my work, feel free to let me know!! i appreciate every comment, kudos, and even shares that i get! in addition, bcus you enjoy my work or if you wanna chat, see my other work, see any art i make as i post it, you can find me at [thegempage](https://thegempage.tumblr.com/) on tumblr or [@achillopal](https://twitter.com/achillopal) on twitter!! i hope you have a wonderful [time appropriate word]!!!  
> (also, if you want to hear me come to the realization of this timeline as it was happening, i'm doing a [hiveswap let's play](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOJMA4jJWhHSgII6sGd2Ls2UiEoGsr4CW) ~~(episode may not be out depending on when you read this)~~ )  
> (edit: [the episode is live!](https://youtu.be/wpFLG0dPhc4))


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